Healthcare

In 2015, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio asked his wife, First Lady Chirlane McCray, to lead an effort to tackle mental health challenges in the city. Called ThriveNYC, it purported to offer a “roadmap for mental health for all.” Yet records show Ms. McCray failed to keep track of how her program spent its money.

Governors and legislators new and old taking office this month will be inundated with advice from all directions. Each special interest and left-wing or right-wing single-issue activist group will have scheduled meetings between its highest-paid lobbyists and the most important legislators; prepared its talking points and social media campaigns; and made its first campaign contributions of 2019. The state’s education association, hospital association, largest employers, small businesses, unions, parks, railroads, airports, universities, sports teams, and hundreds of other stakeholders - e

As the May 18 deadline for negotiating a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) looms, negotiators should consider closely how intellectual property (IP) rights will be treated between the countries involved.

On April 11, 2018, Virginia legislators will return to Richmond for a special session in which they will aim to finish work on the Commonwealth’s budget. At center stage, yet again, is the issue of Medicaid expansion, still unresolved eight years after Obamacare became law.

So many iconic images and phrases come to mind when you think of California. The Gold Rush. The American Dream. Hollywood. The place where anything was possible and big dreams can come true—thanks to the smashing success of capitalism. “Go West, Young Man.” It was the pinnacle of American culture, industry, and innovation, and, at one time, a bastion of conservative thought, voting Republican in nine of the ten presidential elections between 1952 and 1988 and producing two famous twice-elected Republican presidents of the twentieth century, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

While the rest of us were popping champagne to celebrate the arrival of 2018, Seattle greeted the New Year with a 1.75 cent per ounce tax on sweetened beverages. It was needed, former Mayor Ed Murray once said, for a host of noble reasons: to reduce sugar consumption; to raise revenue for important projects like a year of “free” community college for all graduating public high school students; and, to subsidize purchases of healthy foods by low-income f

In November 1998, forty-six US states, along with the District of Columbia and five US territories, and the major tobacco companies entered into a contract of an extraordinary nature. (The other four states, Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas, had entered similar agreements on their own beginning the year before.) The agreement, known as the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), represented the culmination of a decades-long argument between the tob

Since its establishment in 1965, the federal government and the states have jointly administered Medicaid. The program’s characteristics and logistics vary from state to state, and there is always some give-and-take between the states and the feds. States want more flexibility; the federal government wants to make sure states are complying with the law. One thing that has never been permitted is for a state to implement a work requirement for certain Medicaid beneficiaries. That unwise tradition, however, appears to be changing.

On November 7, 2017, Mainers will head to the polls to vote on four ballot measures, including Question 2, which would expand Medicaid in the state to cover able-bodied adults without children whose income is equal to or less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line. In an off-year election, not many will vote; one prediction estimates turnout at 20 percent. That’s a shame, because those who vote will help determine the fiscal future of the state.

Today, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order (EO), "Promote Healthcare Choice and Competition Across the United States,” with the goals of bringing financial relief and more healthcare choices to millions of Americans. Since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, was signed into law, Americans have seen their health insurance options limited while their premiums and deductibles have soared.